53 John Stott Quotes

"All around us we see Christians and churches relaxing their grasp on the gospel, fumbling it, and in danger of letting it drop from their hands altogether."

- John Stott

Topics: The Gospel

"Christian giving is to be marked by self-sacrifice and self-forgetfulness, not by self-congratulation."

- John Stott

Topics: Giving

"To evangelize is to spread the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures, and that as the reigning Lord he now offers the forgiveness of sins and the liberating gift of the Spirit to all who repent and believe."

- John Stott

Topics: Evangelism

"Every powerful movement has had its philosophy which has gripped the mind, fired the imagination and captured the devotion of its adherents."

- John Stott

Topics: Philosophy

"The incentive to peacemaking is love, but it degenerates into appeasement whenever justice is ignored. To forgive and to ask for forgiveness are both costly exercises. All authentic Christian peacemaking exhibits the love and justice - and so the pain - of the cross."

- John Stott

Topics: Justice, The Cross

"We preachers cannot expect to communicate verbally from the pulpit if we visually out of it contradict ourselves."

- John Stott

Topics: Preaching

"Oath-taking is really a pathetic confession of our own dishonesty. What do we find it necessary to introduce our promises by some tremendous formula? The only reason is that we know our simple word is not likely to be trusted. So we try to induce people to believe us by adding a solemn oath."

- John Stott

Topics: Truth

"To encounter Christ is to touch reality and experience transcendence. He gives us a sense of self-worth or personal significance, because He assures us of God's love for us. He sets us free from guilt because He died for us and from paralyzing fear because He reigns. He gives meaning to marriage and home, work and leisure, personhood and citizenship."

- John Stott

Topics: Christ

"Baptism with water is the sign and seal of baptism with the Spirit, as much as it is of the forgiveness of sins. Water-baptism is the initiatory Christian rite, because Spirit-baptism is the initiatory Christian experience."

- John Stott

Topics: Baptism

"Sin and the child of God are incompatible. They may occasionally meet; they cannot live together in harmony."

- John Stott

Topics: Rebellion, Sin

"We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior."

- John Stott

Topics: Scripture

"The Gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales."

- John Stott

Topics: The Gospel, Mercy, The Cross

"We should not ask, "What is wrong with the world?" for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather, we should ask, "What has happened to the salt and light?""

- John Stott

Topics: Apathy

"The very first thing which needs to be said about Christian ministers of all kinds is that they are "under" people as their servants rather than "over" them (as their leaders, let alone their lords). Jesus made this absolutely plain. he chief characteristic of Christian leaders, he insisted, is humility not authority, and gentleness not power."

- John Stott

Topics: Leadership, Authority, Gentleness

"The particularity of each New Testament author was in no way smothered by the unique process of inspiration. On the contrary, the Holy Spirit first prepared, and then used, their individuality of upbringing, experience, temperament and personality, in order to convey through each some distinctive and appropriate truth."